HAWKING. 
147 
caught by persons who are licensed, and are native 
Icelanders. About midsummer, these catchers bring 
their birds, on horseback, holding a pole, with 
another fixed across it, on which ten or twelve sit 
all capped, that is, with their heads covered with 
caps or hoods. This pole is held in their hand, and 
rested on the stirrup. The falconer examines them 
very carefully, and returning those that are of an 
inferior sort, sends off the best to Denmark. During 
the voyage, they are arranged between the decks, 
tied to poles, two rows of a side; these poles are 
covered with coarse cloth over a stuffing of straw, 
and lines are strung from one side to the other, 
pretty close, that they may have something to catch 
hold of in case of the ship’s rolling. The catchers 
receive a written testimony of their respective good 
qualities, by virtue of which, they are paid by the 
king’s receiver-general, about three pounds for the 
best, which are white ; about two pounds for the 
second best, and from eight to ten shillings for the 
remainder: latterly the prices have been raised, hut 
in former days, when they received rather more, 
and money was not so plentiful, this price may be 
considered as very great. But this price is nothing 
in comparison with the sums quoted by historians, 
as given about 200 years ago in England, when a 
Goshawk, a bird far inferior to these Iceland Hawks, 
was sold for one hundred marks, or nearly seventy 
pounds sterling. It is further said, that a certain 
Sir Thomas Monson, about that period, gave no less 
than a thousand pounds for a cast of Hawks, con- 
sisting of two birds. 
In the Orkney islands, a little to the north of 
